The present invention relates to a music playing game technique of operating a simulated music instrument to the accompaniment of a background music being reproduced.
There have been widely known a variety of game apparatuses including game apparatuses for commercial use in which a monitor and loudspeakers are assembled into a main game unit and those for home use in which a monitor and loudspeakers are constructed separately from a main game unit.
In recent years, the game apparatuses for commercial use have adopted games with the object of letting a game player operate a simulated musical instrument in accordance with a music to enjoy the game. Such games include a guitar playing game in which a game player is in charge of guitar sounds and a drum playing game in which a game player is in charge of drum sounds.
In the game apparatuses of this type, a background music is reproduced and contents of instrument playing operations added to the background music being reproduced in synchronism therewith are displayed on a display screen of the monitor. These game apparatuses let the game players think as if they were playing musical instruments.
The applicant of the present application proposed a music game apparatus, in which a guitar playing game apparatus and a drum playing game apparatus are linked via a communication line so that two players can play different musical instruments to the same background music played on monitors of the respective game apparatuses, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 11-037935.
However, this is merely a game which is played while linking two game apparatuses by operating one main game unit and communicating the contents of the background music with the other main game unit in synchronism with the operation of the one main game unit. It is basically a condition that two game apparatuses exist, and such a game is merely one embodiment of the present invention.
In view of the above situation, an object of the present invention is to provide a music playing game apparatus and a performance guiding image display method which can engender a harmonic atmosphere of concert by giving instructions of operations to game players playing different kinds of simulated musical instruments, and a readable storage medium storing a performance guiding image forming program.
To fulfill the above object, according to the present invention, a music playing game apparatus comprises: background music reproducing means for reproducing a background music chosen from a plurality of background music stored in a storage medium; display means for displaying an image stored in the storage medium; control means for reading a plurality of simulated music instruments to be played by a player and a content of recorded information in the storage medium and for executing a predetermined operation to the display means and the background music reproducing means upon receiving an operation signal from the simulated music instrument. Said control means includes a pattern storage unit for storing operation instruction pattern for instructing an operation with the simulated music instrument; a music playing sound information storage unit for storing playing sounds of the simulated music instrument so as to correspond to each operation instruction pattern; a display control unit for dividing the display area into sections whose number is in accordance with the number of the simulated music instruments, for reading out the operation instruction pattern corresponding to the background music to be reproduced, and for displaying the operation instruction patterns in synchronism with the reproduced music in divided sections respectively; and a playing sound output unit for reading out and outputting a playing sound from the playing sound information storage unit, the playing sound corresponding to the operation instruction signal at a time of operation of the music instrument in accordance with the operation instruction pattern displayed on the display control unit.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent upon a reading of the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.